To be honest, I'm not generally a fan of silent movies. The comedy
depends too much on slapstick. The drama is over emoted. Prints
tend to be in fairly shoddy shape--often way too dark. And everything
seems to run at warp speed, as if the projectionist couldn't slow it down.
There are of course a few I've enjoyed, but even with them, much of the
enjoyment lies in the very fact that they are so old-fashioned, that they
carry with them that whiff of nostalgia, a quaint creakiness. Carl
Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, on the other hand, is not only
a great silent film, maybe even the greatest, it is also a seemingly timeless
film, one where the fact that it's silent doesn't matter a bit, might almost
be nothing more than the director's preference. If it were being
released today, for the first time, it would still look fresh, original,
innovative, and technically accomplished.

Now part of this may just be a fluke. For years it was thought
that the only prints of the film had been destroyed. Fire consumed
the original and a newer version that Dreyer painstakingly reconstructed.
After the second fire, he gave up and moved on to his next movie, Vampyr.
Thereafter The Passion was apparently shown in pretty dubious versions,
until in 1981 a pristine copy of the original was found in a closet of
a sanitarium in Oslo, Norway. Whether it's a function of this unique
preservation technique or wholly owing to Dreyer's vision, the film is
much brighter and crisper than just about any other silent you'll ever
see. Another great benefit that this recently restored version enjoys
is the exceptional accompanying music, Voices
of Light, composed by Richard Einhorn specifically for this purpose,
though it is a fine oratorio in its own right.

Dreyer used the actual transcripts of Joan's trial for the dialogue,
but condensed the action down to one harrowing day. He used various
camera angles, so for instance, when the inquisitors are questioning Joan
we look up at them; when she answers we look down. Much is done in
extreme close-up and the camera lingers over every wrinkle, mole, and fleck
of spittle on these men. Nor does it spare Joan--the nineteen year
old girl, whose very style of dress (in men's clothing), was a threat to
established authority. She's played with bug-eyed intensity by Maria
Falconetti who ends up looking like she's truly been tortured--ashen, gaunt,
and hollow-eyed. Apparently by the end of the scene where they cut
Joan's hair, Ms Falconetti and some of the crew were so emotionally distraught
that they had to stop shooting while folks recovered.

And, of course, in Joan's story, Carl Dreyer started out with remarkable
material. From trial, to prison cell, to torture chamber, to confession
to sudden retraction and execution, he follows every step of the way.
Because the camera is always drawn in so tight and because he collapsed
the time frame, we are allowed no room to breathe, no respite from the
march of fate. By the final horrific shots of the bonfire (May 30,
1431) consuming what is by then Joan's corpse, the viewer feels like they've
come as close as they would ever want to experiencing martyrdom.
That's no small achievement on Dreyer's part and makes this one of the
most memorable films of all time. It is astonishing.